Advertising poster, A1 size, 'The mighty healer!! Holloway's Ointment' c.1875
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Quack medicine, or the practice of quackery, is the fraudulent practice or sale of medicine. Quack doctors, or charlatans as they were often referred to, were individuals who would pretend to have extensive medical knowledge and peddle fake medicines to unknowing customers who often may have been suffering from a serious illness. Quacks would particularly make ‘remedies’ for illnesses that had no known cure or treatment, such as cancer, tuberculosis, and even mental disorders. Quacks would often target individuals from poorer social classes, relying on their desperation and suffering in order to make financial gain.
Due to the enigmatic nature of medicine all the way up until the modern era, customers would often credit the quack medicine for their recovery, even if they had actually recovered through natural means, recommending the medicine to others and further allowing quacks to peddle false medicines.
During the period before legislation against quackery, the 19th century was rife with advertisements of medicines containing ridiculous claims to their effectiveness, with one example bestowing themselves the title of ‘essence of life’. Despite the 20th century eventually seeing legislative opposition to the practice of quackery, there are still incidents of it occurring today, often appearing in spam emails or pop-up ads that claim to have the perfect cure or remedy for weight loss, or many other conditions. The recent Coronavirus pandemic saw a huge surge of quack medicines, particularly targeting those who were already vulnerable to the virus, as well as those who were sceptical of taking a Covid-19 vaccine. It was reported that in the US, there were over seven hundred different fake or unproven medicines that claimed to treat or cure the virus, proving that even in the modern age, when medicine is far less mysterious than before, quack medicine is still very much a concern.
Alexander Walker, Hidden Histories project participant
